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Abstract

Purpose

We conducted a prospective study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of postoperative enoxaparin for the prevention of venous thromboembolism (VTE) after laparoscopic surgery for colorectal cancer (LAC) in Japanese patients.

Methods

The subjects of this multicenter, open-label randomized-controlled trial were 121 patients who underwent LAC between September 2015 and May 2017. The patients were randomly allocated to receive intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) with enoxaparin (20 mg, twice daily), started 24–36 h after surgery and continued until discharge (Enoxaparin group; n = 61), or IPC alone (IPC group; n = 60). The primary endpoint was the incidence of VTE on day 28 after surgery. The safety outcome was the incidence of any bleeding during treatment and follow-up.

Results

The incidence of VTE on day 28 after surgery was 12.3% (7/57 patients) in the enoxaparin group and 11.9% (7/59 patients) in the IPC group ((p = 1.00). One of the 57 patients (1.8%) in the enoxaparin group and none in the IPC group experienced a bleeding event.

Conclusions

It may be unnecessary to give enoxaparin to all Japanese patients for the prevention of VTE after LAC.